The Home Ministry issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the movement of people by trains and made it clear that only asymptomatic and confirmed ticket holders will be allowed to travel.

For the first time since March 25, when the lockdown began, a total of 15 trains for different destinations will leave New Delhi on Tuesday for which bookings began on Monday. (Express photo: Javed Raja)

Nearly two months after it suspended its passenger operations in view of the coronavirus-induced lockdown, the Indian Railways will gradually resume passenger train services from May 12. On Monday, the Home Ministry issued a standard operating procedure (SOP) for the movement of people by trains and made it clear that only asymptomatic and confirmed ticket holders will be allowed to travel. Passengers have to reach 90 mins in advance in stations to board the trains.

Booking for reservation in these trains will be available only on the IRCTC website. The fares of these trains will be that of Rajdhani trains, which means all these will be all air-conditioned coaches. Fares will be similar to that of Rajdhanis.

Initially, the Railways announced the booking of tickets on the IRCTC website on Monday from 4 pm, but the website did not respond due to huge traffic of prospective passengers. The services of the portal resumed around 6 pm.

A total of 15 trains for different destinations will leave New Delhi on Tuesday for which bookings will begin today. The special trains will run from New Delhi to Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.